Lunchtime at the Cathedral

Friday, 28th April 2017 : 12.15pm to 1pm

Strait Jackets, Corsets and Cribs: The Life and Death of Princess Charlotte.
Colin Oakes (speaker).
Colin is a tour guide in London with sixty walking tour subjects. Since 1984, he has undertaken talking engagements for many social and academic groups for which he has 295 different subjects. In addition he does coach tours in London and the Home Counties, and has been a regular interviewee on local radio, has filmed tourist videos the British Tourism Board and in-flight entertainment for Virgin Atlantic. Colin has a BA (Hons) degree in Archaelogical Studies from Leicester University and an MA in London Studies from Birkbeck College, University of London. He is an author of "City Walks of London", published by Robson Books.
Princess Charlotte died 200 years ago in childbirth. The country lost their great hope for the monarchy on that day. In her lifetime her grandfather had lost us America, had acted mad on numerous occasions and, after chasing the novelist Fanny Burney, had to be placed in a strait-jacket. Her grandfather George III died blind and mad, leaving an heir that even he felt would do nothing for the country, which proved to be true. After giving up his twenty-two mistresses, he married a woman whom he detested - and the feeling was mutual on her part. This is the Prince Regent who attempted to wrench power from his father and only succeeded in becoming so fat he had to wear a corset permanently. Amazingly, the Prince Regent and his loathed wife managed to have one child, Princess Charlotte, who was pretty, intelligent and loved by the public. Her marriage to Prince Leopold and subsequent pregnancy was just what the country needed to secure the Georgian succession. Sadly, it proved to be an empty crib, as on that fateful day in November 1819, Charlotte and her male child died. History records a fat George IV ascended to the throne in 1820, followed by a sailor king in 1830 (William IV). It could have been different if Charlotte had survived. Certainly Queen Victoria would not have been born if Charlotte had lived.